Tag Archives: rape

It’s amazing to me how I can still be hit by verses so strongly whether I’ve read them once or a thousand times.
⭐️As you do not know what is the way of the wind, Or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, So you do not know the works of God who makes everything. (‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭11‬:‭5‬ NKJV)⭐️
As much as I think I know God and that I’m possibly Christian enough and read the bible enough to know Him, it doesn’t even touch the surface of how great He is.
I recently finished a book titled Atonement Child, by Francine Rivers. It’s about rape and abortion. Though there were parts that seemed inaccurate to me (I panicked when she talked about them strapping the girl and securing her onto the stretcher after she was raped. No. No. No!!! Trapped is how I would feel and I’d want to fight to get away. You don’t strap a rape victim down and load them into a vehicle full of men, even if they are emergency personnel.) but many others hit home so precisely it was definitely either well researched or spoken from experience. The healing that Christ can bring. The light that He can shine on such a horrific thing.
I am a rape survivor. Not a victim. A survivor. I hate the word victim. It makes me seem like I’m some weak and helpless thing. I am not, I am strong because He is my strength. God took the disgusting choice made by a man and made it a scar that I can look at and see that it happened and understand others in a whole new light. It helped me to listen to that still small voice that warns me about people who aren’t in His will and will make choices that could hurt me or those I love and I can make better decisions for how to deal with those people.
I am not without scars from that event in my life. I battle claustrophobia to the point that I panic when putting on a shirt takes too long. But when I give that panic to God, oh it’s AMAZING! I was once preparing to drive over a bridge that I know makes me panic and things start to go dark. I was DRIVING! So of course I knew I’d better start preparing for it. I prayed and God suddenly showed me all the places that the light shine through onto the bridge. It was so beautiful! It went from my going to tunnel vision to being surrounded by sunbeams bright and glittering and beautiful. Where I’d normally feel as if someone very large was pressing down on me and making it difficult to take a breath, my lungs opened to full capacity and a freedom entered.
Maybe I need to start praying before I put shirts on for just in case.
This book also touched on how many women (in the church and out of the church) have received abortions. It spoke on a side of it that had never even crossed my mind.
Before I remembered the rape, it happened when I was 8 years old so my child brain repressed it until it was safe to remember (and of course it picked the absolute WORST time, when my new husband and I were being intimate.), I was very much for abortion. Before it came out that the whole basis of the woman’s story that the judgment was made on was a lie, my thoughts and heart was with her. WHY would ANY woman want to carry her rapist’s child?! Of COURSE she should have an abortion! Later on, I became a Christian and changed my mind, still before I remembered my rape, and thought that maybe God could bring something beautiful from something horrific through a child that may be made from a disgusting excuse of a human being but would also be made from a woman who is strong and beautiful and wonderful.
Once I remembered everything it gave me a lot more to consider. The man who raped me was my step-father. Instead of being a strong male figure in my life, he was a weak and sick person. He had kids from a previous marriage, two daughters and a son. After a few years of healing I realized, those kids, would I go and kill them because he is their father? He may have been apart of creating them, but he is DEFINITELY NOT their Creator. He didn’t make them who they are. We are each who we choose to be. Every choice we make from what clothes to wear to the thoughts we have, that makes us who we are. Even God can’t make us who we are. He guides us, He tries to get us to make the right choices, but in the end He gave us free will. He created us so that He could have children who FREELY choose to love Him. Who will love Him for who He is and not because He created them without free-will. There’s so much more that that whole thing that I can’t even begin to write it all down right now.
My point is, He didn’t make it happen and my stepdad’s children hold no fault in it either.
Now, I had a few years to think on all of it and heal from it all. Thankfully I was too young to become pregnant. Thankfully I didn’t have to make that decision in a much shorter amount of time. If I had, I’m sure I would have made one that I would regret for the rest of my life. I would have come to the same conclusion I did because I would have healed from it. Hindsight is 20/20. This holds true all too often.
I know who I am. I was made by two very flawed people and one GREAT God. My birth mom is so very flawed it makes my heart ache. My dad, he is flawed but he is trying. I am neither of them. They made choices in their lives that have hurt people horribly. I didn’t make those choices. I am separate from them. I may hold their DNA but I do not hold their spirit or their heart. I am me. I take the hurts that have happened and I choose either bitter or better. Some days I choose bitter and end up regretting things. But many days I have chosen better and as a result I can make things better around me too!
No child/fetus/person is who their parents are. They come into this world perfect and untouched by this dark world and they can shine a light that glitters and glows and opens your lungs to breathe freely.
I hope the words of my heart written here help someone. I hope that they shed some light in a darkness that I know too many are going through right now. I pray that God pokes some starlight holes into your darkness that lead to a light brighter than the sun and a joy that is overwhelming. If the words I wrote hurt anyone I pray God changes the words so that they’re His because His words bring healing and that’s what I want for everyone who has been through any situation similar to what I went through.
May the Son shine bright in your life and make your scars like gold filigree.